Things have been looking up for the members of Clone Force 99 lately, which any longtime fan knows means it’s probably time for the other shoe to drop.
In the penultimate week (though it’s the third-to-last episode, appropriately entitled “Tipping Point”) of Star Wars: The Bad Batch’s second season, we check in on just about every major recurring character from the show as their separate storylines begin to converge.
“Tipping Point” begins with Echo and Captain Rex (both voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, as are all the male clones of Jango Fett) boarding an Imperial transport ship to retake some captured clone troopers, who later claim to Senator Chuchi (Jennifer Hale) that they were taken into custody for daring to question their orders under the Empire. Meanwhile at Mount Tantiss, Crosshair is administered a grueling interrogation by Doctor Hemlock (Jimmi Simpson), but when left under the slightly less draconian supervision of stormtroopers and Emerie Karr (Keisha Castle-Hughes), he is able to stage a short-lived escape. During his brief egress, Crosshair is able to send a message to the Bad Batch informing them of what Hemlock is after– Omega’s location, naturally. And speaking of Omega (Michelle Ang), she and her pals are settling in nicely on Pabu, though Hunter can’t make up his mind as to whether their relocation there should be a permanent one. A visit from Echo interrupts Omega’s training session as she’s learning to fly the Havoc Marauder from Tech, who gets to work right away attempting to decrypt the data card that Echo brought with him from his and Rex’s Imperial raid.
Hemlock receives a holocommunication from Governor Tarkin (Stephen Stanton), and it's clear the two colleagues have differing opinions about how to deal with the growing threat of disaffection among the ranks of clone troopers. When Tech completes his decryption work, the team finds out about Hemlock and his unorthodox experiments– not to mention the fact that Crosshair is being held at his covert facility. They put two and two together, with Crosshair’s message as the final piece of the puzzle, and figure out that their old squadmate may have finally turned against the Empire. A final interrogation session with Crosshair reminds us that Hemlock is indeed a formidable villain, and that “Tipping Point” has served as a suitable setup for next week’s finale. And yes, I’d say this episode was mostly about getting all the various pieces where they need to be for the endgame, but it was still an entertaining half hour that made sure we knew the status of pretty much all the characters still left on the chessboard for this series– with the notable exception of Cid, who I am guessing may prove to be the wild card around the corner in the finale… to mix game-playing metaphors. But with enemies becoming allies and allies becoming enemies, it’s increasingly tough to predict exactly where things are headed in The Bad Batch. And that just so happens to be exactly how I like it!
The two-part second-season finale of Star Wars: The Bad Batch will be released next Wednesday, March 29th, exclusively via Disney+.